
THE 
CHURCH- 
AFTER 
THE WAR- 
WHAT? 



ROBERT E, SPEER 

GARY B. WILMER 

GEORGE W. COLEMAN 




Gass 
BooL 



GyyiigMK^, 



COPYRIGHT DEPQSm 



Published for the Commission on Interchurch 

Federations of the Federal Council of the 

Churches of Christ in America 



THE CHURCH- 
AFTER THE WAR— 
WHAT? 



ROBERT E. SPEER 

GARY B. WILMER 

GEORGE W. COLEMAN 

Introduction by 
FRED B. SMITH 

ROY B. GUILD, Editor 



ASSOCIATION PRESS 

New York: 347 Madison Avenue 
1919 






copthight, 1919, by 
Roy B. Guild 



Mai -9 idl^ 



©CI.A525435 



PREFACE 

In the messages and reports herein given to 
the public is found the keynote of the confer- 
ences on interchurch work now being held in 
different parts of the country and to be held in 
greater number during the coming year. 

Two words, community and unity, are to the 
front in this day. The Church exists for the 
community. The churches, through unity of 
spirit and of thought and of action, must 
become the ablest servants of the community 
or surrender to other agencies the opportunity 
that is offered to them. 

The religious leaders who wish to see the 
principles herein stated put into practice, do 
not now need to experiment. So many cities 
have interchurch organizations which have 
made these experiments and have worked out 
successful plans for cooperative efforts, that 
others can profit by their experiences. It is 
earnestly hoped that this series of addresses 
will arouse many to action. 

The Editor. 



lU 



CONTENTS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

Preface, The Editor iii 

I. Introduction, Fred B. Smith 1 

II. The Work of the Church Today, 

Robert E. Speer 13 

III. The Church of the Future, Cary 

B. WiLMER 31 

IV. Moving Toward the Light, George 

W. Coleman 45 

V. Declarations of the Atlantic City 

Conference 63 



INTRODUCTION 

Fred B. Smith 



INTRODUCTION 

Those who read this series of remarkable 
addresses will be profited if they are first 
reminded of exactly the incidents and the 
peculiar settings which called forth these ex- 
pressions. In approaching the close of the 
Great War and in recognition of the tremendous 
responsibilities which would come to Protes- 
tant Christianity, many of a type and character 
which had not been encountered hitherto, the 
Federal Council of Churches of Christ in 
America was led to recommend a series of 
conferences to be held throughout the nation. 

The purpose of these conferences was first 
of all to study anew the questions which are 
confronting the churches, and second, to bring 
about nation-wide unity in the expression of 
the best methods of meeting the needs thus 
discovered. 

In anticipation of this series of larger con- 
ventions throughout the country, a few of 
the greatest leaders were invited to meet at 
Atlantic City, December 18 and 19, 1918, to 
outline in general form what it seemed to 
them ought to be the message and method 
of this new and larger Christian program. 
Ninety truly great men spent two remark- 
able days together. Most of the time was 



4 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

spent in unprepared, open, informal expres- 
sions of personal convictions, hopes, and de- 
sires concerning the Church — its future, its 
message, its methods. To give guidance, 
however, to the whole, the addresses which 
are found in this volume were delivered. 

The most significant incident in connection 
with the entire conference referred to, was 
the fact that these ninety men seemed to have 
a somewhat incidental interest in the question 
of church machinery. Those who had called 
the conference had rather anticipated that 
perhaps the major interest would center around 
the readjustments so much talked about in 
the mechanism of organized religion, but for 
fully one-half of the whole time the conference 
persistently clung to the question of what 
is to be the type of message delivered by the 
Christian Church in this period of remaking 
a shattered world. The expression was often 
heard that if every last thing the experts had 
ever hinted at concerning machinery could be 
immediately adopted, thus putting the organ- 
ized elements of religion upon the highest 
possible plane of efficiency, if the Church then 
failed to emphasize the things which are related 
to this new life, it was bound to fail. So 
strongly did these great leaders feel that 
the message to be delivered was of primary 
importance that, with a tenacity which would 
not yield, they clung to this discussion — going 



INTRODUCTION 5 

up on one side and down on the other for 
one-half of all the time allotted to the con- 
ference. It, therefore, seemed nothing less 
than providential that the addresses found 
in this book should have been delivered and 
can be accepted as such a high epitome of 
the very message these men longed for, prayed 
for, and declared their determination never to 
give up until they had fully found. 

There was full recognition of the fact that 
we are living in the midst of great prophecies 
about better equipment for the Church and 
its allied societies, and also in a time of great 
prophecies about the geographical extension of 
Christianity, as well as in a time when greater 
words of expectation are uttered concern- 
ing cooperation and unity than ever in the 
past; but these men held in no unmistakable 
way that vaster than any of these, or all of 
these combined, is the question of whether 
the Christian Church is going to deliver a 
message broad enough in its dimensions to 
encompass all of life and make this new world 
of reconstruction accept it as the cardinal 
doctrine of enduring peace. 

Following this closely, however, in ratio of 
importance came the question of how Protes- 
tant Christianity was going to get essential 
unity upon this larger program. Every voice 
that spoke gave utterance to a sentiment which 
seemed to be in the hearts of all, that the 



6 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

community has become the unit with which 
Christianity has to deal, and that, therefore, 
unrelated denominations or societies are fatal 
to the best interest of the Christian Church. 
There were present the strongest advocates of 
rapid, organic church unity of the Protestant 
forces. There were those present who ex- 
pressed strong doubts concerning this even as 
an ultimate goal, but after lengthy debate 
and after fullest conference there was unan- 
imous approval of the report submitted by 
the committee of which the Rev. C. B. Wilmer, 
D.D., of Atlanta, Ga., was Chairman, and 
another by the commission of which Professor 
H. L. Willett of the University of Chicago 
was Chairman, as the surest method for se- 
curing practical, immediate results. Summing 
it up, there can be no doubt but that the 
unanimous feeling was that some form of 
inter-church committee, league, club, or fed- 
eration among the Protestant churches in 
every city, town, or community of the na- 
tion, was the next great step in meeting the 
trying vexed task of reconstruction. I do not 
believe there was a delegate who was present, 
however, in the final hour when that vote 
was passed adopting these two reports, but 
who felt assured that eventually there would 
come greater union in the organic relations 
of these now unrelated and sometimes com- 
peting elements of the Christian Church. 



INTRODUCTION 7 

Certainly there was a large majority there 
who believed, hoped, prayed, and expected 
even in their day to see a unity of organic 
Christian forces throughout the world that 
might be even greater than that spoken of as 
"Protestant." While many cherish hope in 
this realm, and free expression was given again 
and again to that sentiment, they were all 
agreed that the immediate call was for some 
form of cooperation which would get practical 
unity upon this community service which the 
Christian Church is called upon now to render. 
A third note in the order of its importance 
that should be mentioned here, was the 
call for larger cooperation in service, in out- 
lining plans and programs, and in mutual 
understanding of the Protestant churches and 
their allied societies. A committee, of which Dr. 
Clarence A. Barbour of the Rochester Theologi- 
cal Seminary was Chairman, dealt with this 
question and called first of all upon the Chris- 
tian churches to recognize these allied societies, 
such as the Sunday School Movement, the 
Young Men's Christian Association, the Young 
Women's Christian Association, the missionary 
organizations, and the young people's societies, 
as vital, definite factors in their life. This, of 
course, provoked some discussion of what the 
real definition is of the Christian Church, and 
while there was doubtless a good deal of differ- 
ence of opinion concerning the various defini- 



8 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

tions submitted, there was no difference of opin- 
ion upon the demand that the Christian Church 
ought to recognize these societies and organ- 
izations as an integral part of its program and 
everywhere give them the practical demon- 
stration of this in hearty approval of their 
work. With equal earnestness, however, these 
organizations were also called upon to recog- 
nize their permanent allegiance to the Chris- 
tian Church and were asked to make known 
in some form their plans and programs, that 
the Church as a whole may therefore have 
the advantage of advanced information con- 
cerning local, state, national, or international 
plans being projected. 

It is my belief that if this one item alone 
can be worked out successfully, so that in the 
future no one of these societies shall be led 
to make its plans either for community or 
for national expression, without recognition of 
other societies of a kindred type and without 
recognition of the Church as a whole, the 
conference will have amply justified itself and 
its conventions to follow will justify them- 
selves. There are many very sincere, devout, 
consecrated Christian workers throughout the 
nation, who have been distressed by the 
tendency of these societies, each appealing 
to its own clientele, to make out unrelated 
community programs that would center in 
themselves just as though none of the others 



INTRODUCTION 9 

were in existence. This note calling for better 
coordination has elements of great possibility 
for good to the supreme issues of the King- 
dom of God. 

Taken as a whole, the conference had in it 
some men who looked into the future with a 
scant degree of hope, but they were in the 
minority. The larger number, while giving due 
recognition to the difficulties and not un- 
mindful of the vexed situations arising, faced 
the future in unbroken confidence that the 
Christian Church is going forward with in- 
creasing strength, that it is not a decadent 
force, that it is not a retreating army, but 
that, quite to the contrary, counting well the 
cost, it is facing the reconstruction and the 
mighty problems of nationalism and inter- 
nationalism, believing itself to be the repository 
of the hopes of all for their ultimate success. 

The leaders and those particularly respon- 
sible for this conference very soon after re- 
turning found themselves confronted with a 
practical problem of carrying out those great 
ideals of cooperation and unselfishness which 
had been so strongly preached for forty-eight 
hours in their presence, for it was learned that 
exactly at the same time that this conference 
was in session, a similar one was being held 
at 25 Madison Avenue, New York City, repre- 
senting all the missionary societies of the 
Protestant churches, both home and foreign. 



10 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

They in turn had been outlining a program of 
conferences and conventions throughout the 
nation, to be followed by a financial drive 
in 1920, which, if carried out parallel with the 
conferences proposed by the Atlantic City 
Conference, would give the impression to the 
nation again of division and of averlapping. 
In consequence the United Missionary Con- 
ference asked those representing the confer- 
ence held under the auspices of the Federal 
Council of Churches to appoint a committee 
of conference to meet them, which was done. 
Many meetings were held, with the result that 
instead of carrying two movements down 
through the nation at about the same time, 
one of which might have been thought of as 
having a home accent and the other a mis- 
sionary accent, these have been consolidated 
into what is known now as The Interchurch 
World Movement of North America. 

As Chairman of the committee responsible 
for the conference at Atlantic City December 
18th and 19th, I have great satisfaction, as 
these messages are submitted in this book, in 
commending it to all those who are interested 
in the Kingdom of God to the ends of the 
earth, not as one part of a program, but now 
as an element in a united program which I 
firmly believe will mean more to the triumph 
of the cause of Jesus Christ than any other 
movement in the history of the Protestant 



INTRODUCTION 11 

Church up to this date. This volume and 
these addresses are released at a time of great 
confusion of mind, spirit, and body through- 
out the world. Leagues of nations, world 
courts, parliaments, and treaties are much 
talked of as an earnest of a better brotherhood 
throughout the world and an enduring peace. 
With all of these I find myself in accord: that 
they are vital, that they are essential, that 
they have great potency I am persuaded. 
Likewise, I am persuaded that unless they all 
shall be underwritten, permeated, pervaded, 
inspired by the truths of Jesus Christ as enun- 
ciated by the Christian Church, they must 
eventually fail. While the world needs the 
helpfulness of all their messages, the world 
needs most the voice that can interpret life in 
the terms of spirituality, brotherhood, and 
universal good will. To this the Christian 
Church lends itself as never before in its 
history and goes forward full of hope. 



II 

THE WORK OF THE CHURCH TODAY 
Robert E. Speer 



n 

THE WORK OF THE CHURCH TODAY 

Wherever any group of Christian men come 
together today, whatever may have been the 
specified object of their gathering, there is 
just one subject to which, inevitably, first or 
last, their minds turn: the subject of the 
present duty of the Christian Church and of 
our duty as Christian men in that Church, to 
that Church, and, through the Church, to 
the nation and the world. There are many 
other groups which are assembling in these 
days which discuss their interests and their 
rights; and many of these groups, which in other 
days, would have confined their discussions to 
their interests and their rights, are think- 
ing now also of duties. But, wherever Chris- 
tian men come together, it is not a matter of 
interests or of rights at all: it is a matter 
exclusively of the duty of the Christian Church 
of which they are part and of themselves as 
Christian men in that Church, as to just what 
its present task is, wherein that task is differ- 
entiated from what its task may have been, 
and how the experiences through which the 
Church and the world have been passing have 
defined or affected that task in any way. 

15 



16 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

The first thing I should like to say, bear- 
ing on this general question, is that these 
experiences have clarified and they have con- 
firmed the fundamental Christian ideas. We 
are speaking today to an attitude of mind 
more intelligent and more responsive toward 
the great fundamental ideas of the Christian 
faith than any attitude of mind we have 
known in our generation. 

Take just five great ideas: 

First: The idea of God. It has been amaz- 
ing to see through this experience how shallow 
the skepticism of the past generation has 
been. No doubt, the atheistic view has eaten 
more deeply into the moral character of the 
generation than we can know; but its theolog- 
ical influence, one is tempted now almost to 
say, has been negligible. There have been no 
atheists discoverable anywhere in the camps 
here or in the army on the other side of the 
sea. Men have believed in God. It has been 
dumfounding to see how instinctive this be- 
lief in God has appeared to be and how absent 
all the cheap atheism, with which we were 
familiar before, has been in this great crisis. 
It has not only been a revelation of how deeply 
men believed in God: the experience itself 
has strengthened that faith. The assurance of 
righteousness in history, the visible spectacle 
before men's eyes of the judgment of God 
striking home on the third and fourth genera- 



WORK OF THE CHURCH TODAY 17 

tions after Frederick the Great, the pains 
which men have experienced in association with 
righteousness, have ail deepened men's faith 
in God. 

Take, second, the idea of man. The old 
theological paradox we have always held with 
regard to man — his divinity and his devilish- 
ness, his limitless strength and power and his 
vacillation, his weakness: all of that every 
man who has passed through this great expe- 
rience accepts now. The highest estimate that 
the Christian theory puts on man we see now 
to be justified; and all that the apostle said 
about the colossal havoc that sin had made of 
man we see also now justified before our eyes. 
The traditional evangelical anthropology is 
commonplace among the men who have passed 
through this great experience. 

Take, third, the idea of the Church. There 
are those who think that the Christian Church 
comes out of this war badly; that now that 
the War is over, the men will come streaming 
back from the other side saying, "The Knights 
of Columbus we know; the Young Men's 
Christian Association we know; and the Sal- 
vation Army we know; but what is this thing 
they call the Christian Church.^" I have no 
such fears. One trembles for all other organ- 
izations as the result of the War; but one has 
no misgivings whatever regarding the Church; 
for, if there have been lessons which the War 



18 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

has taught, which it has burned home out of 
experience in the Hves of men, they are just 
the lessons that He at the very heart of the 
nature of the Christian Church, the meaning 
of collectivism, of social relationship, the power 
of fellowship to lift the weak and carry them. 

It is amazing, as one has gone out through 
the camps and mingled with the men, to see 
how much more those churches which had a 
vivid sense of the corporate reality of the 
Church appealed to the men than churches 
in which that idea was weak and undeveloped. 
Those churches to which the sacraments were 
real had an incalculable advantage over those 
churches to which the sacraments meant com- 
paratively little. It would be easy to mul- 
tiply illustrations here this evening — all could 
do it who have had any firsthand contact 
with the men — to show how powerfully what 
lies in our thought as deepest in the very 
nature of the Church is the thing which ap- 
pealed most to these men, although they, of 
course, are not aware of its having been the 
Church. But the principles stand out in men's 
experience and thought with a new meaning 
and power. 

Take the idea of the Cross, also. The prin- 
ciple of abandonment, of letting one's life go 
as the agency of achievement; the principle 
of freedom from all things and of accomplish- 
ing results just by naked life; the principle 



WORK OF THE CHURCH TODAY 19 

of atonement: three of the great principles 
that are embodied in the Cross of Christ have 
been lived in and through by thousands of 
men. The idea of the Cross has been made 
intelligible to many men today by their own 
actual experience. 

Or, take the idea of Christ. Christ is the 
most outstanding figure in the Army and the 
Navy today; and not as a teacher, mind you. 
Men have been bothered by some of the 
teaching of Christ; some have ignorantly 
thought, as Conan Doyle felt, that there were 
a good many of the forms of Christ's teaching 
that needed to be adjourned until after the 
War. It is not that side: it is the under- 
lying principles that they feel. Christ is the 
living supernatural person today of whom they 
think, very crudely, no doubt, many of them; 
but if anyone thinks that the mere unitarian 
gospel appeals to these men, let him go and 
preach it to them. He will find as he mingles 
among them that the Godhead we see in Christ 
has a new significance and meaning and attrac- 
tiveness to these multitudes of our younger 
men. 

I say, first of all, that the experience through 
which we have been passing has given us a 
mental climate in which to preach the great 
principles of Christianity such as we have not 
had, with men's minds open to them, with 
these ideas intelligible to them as they were 



20 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

not before, with new depths of experience 
opened in their souls. 

In the second place, the War has not only 
advantaged the Christian faith in the state- 
ment of its intellectual convictions. It has set 
moral and spiritual values in the supreme place 
in a day when we were beginning to fear 
whether moral and spiritual values could ever 
regain that place, when we were driven to 
think that mercenary considerations had come 
absolutely to dominate the American mind, 
when those types of magazines which were 
most popular and that type of advertising 
which was deemed the most successful rested 
on fundamentally unChristian conceptions of 
success and of the use of life and human rela- 
tionships. What we see is the reverse of all 
that, and we know now that these men talk 
without their audience, that deep in men's 
hearts there is the capacity to set the moral 
and spiritual values over against things and 
all personal interests. I was talking the other 
day with a father who was telling me about 
his boys, five out of six of them in the Army, 
four of whom had been for the last four weeks 
under fire. What personal interest was there 
in that — a man to give his five sons to death 
and those ^ve sons to go without hesitancy .^^ 

We had gradually come to believe — it had 
worked its way into all our conceptions of 
political economy and international affairs — 



WORK OF THE CHURCH TODAY 21 

that the only motives that were legitimate or 
effective in the life of nations were the mo- 
tives of material interest. Now we see there 
is not a word of truth in it. What Dr. Guttery 
of England put so picturesquely to us con- 
tains what we know to be the truth as he 
pictured Belgium to us in address after address 
of his, Belgium as the national soul that had no 
body. It is the second time we have seen that 
in history. You may define what you mean 
by a nation, and your definition will not 
apply to Belgium since the War began. Was 
Belgium, therefore, not a nation.^ Yes, it was 
a national soul astray in the world without a 
body. Just a little muddy strip of Flanders, 
that was all its land. That would not hold 
the Belgian soul. We see that there is a soul 
in nations that you can detach from the body 
of the nation and then bring back again into 
its body, as Belgium has now come back. 

All the emphasis that was laid on morale 
also was simply a testimony to the unreality 
of the old materialistic ideas. There is a 
passage in the second volume of Cromer's 
"Egypt" in which he recalls Napoleon's maxim 
that in war the moral is to the material as 
three to one, and works out the truth of that 
from his own experience in Egypt. And we 
see now from the experience we have passed 
through that that is commonplace and that 
the moral is to the material as probably a 



22 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

good deal more tlian three to one. What we 
have seen has been the rejection by the great 
mass of mankind today of the old material- 
istic view and the acceptance by the world 
of idealism; of ethical idealism, which is simply 
a belief in the possibility of the best; which 
in politics is simply political optimism; of 
idealism which is simply unselfishness, the 
exaltation above all other values of life, truth, 
and duty. 

I say not only in the realm of the intellectual 
statement of our Christian doctrines, but in 
the moral atmosphere which we are breathing 
and in the midst of which we are to do our 
work, the Christian Church has been given 
a new time. No doubt some of the loyalty 
and idealism has been crude and imperfect. 
There is a striking poem by Sir Alfred Lyall. 
It is the story of a British officer in India who 
was captured in the foot-hills of the Himalayas 
by some Mohammedan mountaineers and was 
offered his life if he would abjure Christianity. 
He had no Christianity to abjure. He was an 
agnostic and he was called on simply to avow 
his agnostic faith and he would be given his 
life. And he would not do it. So to a God 
of whom he was not sure, to that God he 
would still be loyal, and he died. It is an 
interesting bit of poetry and a wonderful bit 
of psychology, and it pictures something of 
what we have been seeing in the world today 



WORK OF THE CHURCH TODAY 2B 

— loyalty not so much to any object of loyalty, 
but just to the idea of loyalty, "loyalty to 
loyalty," as Professor Royce would have put 
it. I have seen more meaning in that expres- 
sion since reading Ly all's poem. How can we 
exaggerate the opportunity that is offered to 
us now, to take these great currents of ideal- 
ism, of loyalty with undefined objects, the 
expression and outgoing of the deepest in men 
toward something outside of them, and give 
that its true goal, rationalize it to these men, 
found it in the deep, divine, invisible reali- 
ties.? 

In the third place, the experience through 
which we have gone has not only clarified and 
confirmed our fundamental Christian ideas and 
set moral and spiritual values in the place of 
supremacy; but it has defined for us much 
more clearly the problem of church unity and 
power. I spoke on this at length last week, 
and I am not going to repeat what was said 
then, but there are several added things that 
can be said. The experience has shown us the 
facts — I was about to call them the reproach- 
ful facts — which constitute a new ground of 
appeal for our work and for our bringing to- 
gether our diverse and scattered energies. 

For one fact, the War unified the nation. 
Can the War do for the nation what Christ 
cannot do for the Church.? If a war can 
unify the nation and Christ cannot unify the 



U CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

Church, what are the inevitable inferences you 
must draw? Is Christ less powerful than war 
or is the Church harder-souled than the nation? 
There is the fact that men have experienced 
unity. Thousands of them know it now as 
the most real factor of their lives, and they 
do not want to lose that great experience. 

Then there is the fact of our discovery in 
the history of our own activity during the 
year and a half that has gone by of the prices 
that we have to pay for our lack of coherent 
action. We paid heavy penalties. Our chil- 
dren for years will look back and marvel at 
the penalties that we have paid. It is too 
late now to go back and escape their pay- 
ment. But the facts that we have faced this 
last year look at us reproachfully as they see 
us hesitating to the extent that we have hesi- 
tated in the matter of tightening the lines of 
our cooperative action. 

Our experience has defined more ciearly 
what the problems of unity are. There are 
five of them. I think you will agree that there 
are these five, if you come to analyze the 
problem carefully. The question of Christian 
unity is a problem of activities, it is a prob- 
lem of property — and how awful that problem 
is men only know when they draw near to it 
and try to attack it — it is a problem of order, 
it is a problem of faith, and it is a problem of 
temper. And we are never going to solve the 



WORK OF THE CHURCH TODAY ^5 

problem until we have solved it in these five 
different elements of it. 

The experience of the year has made clear 
to us what the steps are of immediate possible 
advancement. It has shown to us how much 
can be accomplished by the possession by men 
of a common, even though a very distant, 
ideal. There are ideals that have bound men 
together in this great struggle that they have 
not realized, that will not be realized for long 
generations of time as yet; but the common 
possession of an adequately commanding ideal, 
howsoever distant, binds men together. 

We have seen how much can be done by 
taking what steps it is possible for us to take 
now, without waiting until a far distant goal 
has been achieved. Every measure of this or 
any conference in laying out our plans of 
brotherly accord and agreement now is a help 
toward that end. 

A third great help I got from a Jesuit friend 
the other evening when he put it all in this 
little bit of advice: "We can help one another," 
said he, "we can help one another by healing 
thoughts and healing feelings." 

What we have passed through has not only 
clarified and confirmed our basic Christian 
ideas; it has not only established in the first 
place the principle of unselfishness which Christ 
set in the first place, and which is one way 
of coming to a clear vision of truth; it has not 



26 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

only revealed to us more than we knew before 
as to what the problem of our unity and power 
is: it has, because it has done all these things, 
defined for us afresh and afresh confronted us 
with our present-day task. And that task is 
the cooperative witness, the united witness to 
the great truths that lie at the base of our 
Christian faith and without which the faith 
cannot be; and it is the pouring in to the 
nation and the world of the tides of moral and 
spiritual power after which men have groped 
and to whose supremacy they have confessed, 
and which we know have only one source, in 
the life and death and resurrection of our 
Lord Jesus Christ. 

It seems to me that the present task of the 
Church is this, and that, while a great deal 
else can be said which is dealing with the 
skirtings and the trimmings, still this is the 
central task beside us now today. It may 
seem to many a modest way of putting it. 
I know there are many who would make more 
ambitious claims for the Church than this, 
but I do not believe that the Church is the 
only divine institution in the world. I believe 
that the State and the family are as divine 
as the Church, and if there are any of these 
three institutions that we should dispense with, 
the Church would not be the last of them. 
There is a day coming when the perfect society 
at last shall be established on the earth and 



WORK OF THE CHURCH TODAY 27 

the New Jerusalem shall come down out of 
God from Heaven, and we need to remind 
ourselves that there will be a Father in that 
city, but there will be no temple in it. You 
can get along without a church much more 
easily than you can get along without some 
other things. And I do not believe all the 
work of the world rests on that institution at 
all; but I know that the Church is charged 
with a vital and dynamic duty, that it lies 
at the very core, and that there never was 
a day when the discharge of that dynamic 
duty was more necessary than today, when 
the world wanted more to find in it a group 
of men who know that they have what Christ 
conceived His Church was going to be, who 
are ready to open wide to all men the doors 
of a living and divine fellowship. 

I can illustrate better what I mean by a 
contrast between two letters, real ones. One 
is a letter written by ex-President Eliot, of Har- 
vard, with regard to the Young Men's Chris- 
tian Association in the city of Peking: "I 
was in Peking in June, 1912, and, in com- 
pany with some distinguished Chinese officials, 
including the Premier, attended an interesting 
ceremony at the laying of the corner-stone of 
the new building of the Young Men's Christian 
Association. Mr. Gailey was then, as now, 
head of the work. Although I was no more 
interested then than I am now in the evan- 



28 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

gelizing work of the Association, I was very 
much struck with the value of the work done 
at the institution, particularly two subjects — 
in the English language and in athletics. The 
importation into China of baseball and other 
outdoor sports is one of the very best services 
that Christian missions there have rendered to 
the Chinese people." 

Over against it put these letters from Bishop 
Westcott, written to friends in 1866 and 1867: 
"I cannot think that any estimate of our Lord's 
work which starts from its ethical aspect can be 
other than totally deceptive. This was not 
that which the apostles preached, and not 
this could have conquered the world. ... I do 
feel it ought to be impossible for men to mis- 
represent the fundamental ideas of Christian- 
ity, and yet they do on all sides without fear 
of contradiction or detection." And not less to- 
day than in the day when Bishop Westcott 
wrote. 

What we have to do toaay is to see our 
mission as men who represent the Christian 
Church to the world in the terms in which 
those men saw it who carried the Church out 
into the Roman Empire and planted it once 
and forever in the world, in the terms in which 
those men have always seen it who have ever 
succeeded in uplifting human history, who have 
succeeded, by God's grace, in getting their 
shoulders under life and heaving it to new 



WORK OF THE CHURCH TODAY 29 

levels. As a friend put it the other day in 
Professor Ladd's home in New Haven: It 
is our business first, to witness to the world, 
to make real to it, and to incarnate in our 
own lives the Christian conception of God, 
God in Christ. Second, to reveal in the world 
and to make incarnate in our fellowship the 
Christian conception of society. Third, to wit- 
ness to the world and to experience in our own 
lives the real principle of history, which is 
that history is not the self-redemption of 
humanity, but that history is the self -revela- 
tion of God in the redemption of humanity, 
that what we are dealing with is not human 
effort, what we are dealing with is a great 
tide of life that is beating through humanity, 
finding all kinds of grotesque expressions as 
the result of the resistance between it and the 
humanity it has to deal with, but a tide of 
true life still, beating full and strong. And 
if the Christian Church does not raise this 
voice today, if it does not experience the 
supernatural, if it does not know it in its own 
life, if it does not construe human experience 
in history in terms of the supernatural, what 
are we better than that which we are trying 
to uplift, or the dead work we are trying 
to do? 

I have running through my mind the last 
lines of Henry Newbolt's poem on Chinese 
Gordon: 



30 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

"And this man was not great by gold or royal 
state. 
By sharp sword or knowledge of earth's 
wonder; 
But, more than all his race, he saw life face 
to face, 
And heard the still small voice above its 
thunder." 

And the hearing of that voice above its 
thunder, and being mouthpiece for it to groping 
men today across the world, is that not our 
first and our last business? 



m 

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 
Rev. Cakt B. Wilmer, D.D. 



Ill 

THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 

It seems to me that the question of what 
the Church of the future is to be is one that 
can be answered only by asking another ques- 
tion first, and that is, without referring to this 
epoch or any other, What is the Church in 
the world for? and then, after asking that 
question, noting the special conditions under 
which we must work and the particular prob- 
lems which face us in any particular epoch 
or era. I think myself that a wider interpre- 
tation of the Gospel is needed. 

The Gospel 

The first topic before us is "The New or 
Added Emphasis of the Gospel Message." It 
would seem to be implied that there is no 
difference of opinion as to what the gospel 
message is. I venture to suggest that we 
need a broader interpretation or definition of 
the Gospel itself. I feel that I am safe in haz- 
arding the opinion that, even in such a pro- 
gressive body as this, if I were to ask the 
question. What do you mean by the Gospel? 
a majority of the answers would be made in 
terms of some theory of the atonement. I 

33 



34 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

believe you would answer so, if you did it, 
because you are heirs of the Protestant Ref- 
ormation, which constructed its theory of the 
Gospel on the interpretation of certain pas- 
sages of the epistles of the New Testament, 
and, so far as I can find out, paid little or no 
attention to what lies back of that, the teach- 
ings of our Lord HimseK. We owe this dis- 
covery partly to the criticism of the Germans. 
When God wants something out of the way. 
He gets the Philistines to get it out of the 
way. Go back to our Lord's teachings, where 
He began and said, "The time is fulfilled, 
and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent 
ye, and believe in the gospel" — that is, the 
"good news." I want to ask you to prac- 
tice a little exegesis and tell me what in that 
sentence is the meaning of the "good news." 
The good news consists in the proposition, the 
Gospel consists in the proposition, that the 
Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. It is that 
to which we are to adjust ourselves by re- 
pentance and faith. 

Of course, the atonement and related matters 
have their place, but it makes a good deal of 
difference whether they have their place in 
that program or whether they constitute the 
whole definition of the Gospel. The King- 
dom of Heaven has been at hand for two 
thousand years. It is at hand in the same 
sense that spring is at hand when there is 



THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 35 

just one little violet blossoming. All the forces 
are there which are necessary to bring to pass 
all the beautiful flowers and trees and every- 
thing else. The other side of it is to realize 
that and to make it actual. 

We have lisped at our mothers' knees this 
prayer: "Our Father Who art in Heaven; 
hallowed be Thy name; Thy Kingdom come; 
Thy Will be done on earth as it is in Heaven." 
Not one word about going to Heaven when 
we die, but everything about bringing Heaven 
here. If we ask, What is the goal at which 
we are to aim.? we can get that from the mes- 
sage of the seventh angel in the book of Revela- 
tion, when the announcement is made that 
"the kingdom of the world is become the king- 
dom of our Lord and of his Christ." St. Paul 
tells us, "The kingdom of God is righteousness 
and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost." 

So I think the Gospel means primarily the 
message that the actual forces are here which 
we need to apply, and so to apply as to get 
righteousness — individual, social, national, and 
international; peace — individual, social, na- 
tional, and international; and joy into every 
human relationship. I think we need that 
conception of the Gospel. 

The Church 

I believe that the Church is not the King- 
dom of God: but the Church is the organ 



36 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

for the establishment of the Kingdom of God, 
and no family and no state can take its place. 
The family is divine, the state is divine; but 
both of them will go to the devil without that 
which the Church, and the Church alone, 
possesses. We have the supernatural power, 
we are the transcendent guide, as the natural 
family and the state are the secular guides. 
The Church might be called in a relative 
sense the Kingdom of Heaven. The family 
by its very nature cannot produce the tran- 
scendent fellowship on which the Kingdom is 
based, nor can the State: "Whosoever shall do 
the will of God the same is my brother, and 
sister, and mother," is the fellowship of the 
Kingdom of God. 

The Church and This Age 

If that is what the Church is for, I pass to 
the present epoch. It will help us if we take 
a glance at the steps by which we have come 
to the present situation. The past may be 
divided into two eras; one in which the Church 
took itself seriously and undertook to con- 
trol the political life of the world. The Holy 
Roman Empire was one illustration of that. 
The Church did a great deal of good, but it 
could not do all. It began to get worldly itself, 
with the result that the Lord sent an explosive 
force in the shape of the Protestant Reforma- 
tion. I do not think I do injustice to that 



THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 37 

if I say that it rightly confined itself almost 
entirely to the one essential question of how 
a person shall get into right relationship with 
God, and that it answered that question by 
saying, "Repentance toward God, and faith 
in our Lord Jesus Christ"; but in confining 
the Gospel to that, it gave us a conception of 
religion as only a scheme by which to go to 
Heaven when we die — and a mighty poor 
Heaven, too, in many instances a sugar-plum 
Heaven — and of the Church as what some one 
has called "a post-mortem emigration society." 
Today we are called on not to surrender 
justification by faith, although the cry that 
woke Europe up will put a modern congrega- 
tion to sleep. We are to stand by this method 
of getting into right relationship with the 
source of our being; but I do think we ought 
to add that these persons, after they get 
justified, ought to be so used as to make the 
application of the spirit of Christ to all rela- 
tionships. 

Inadequacy of Individualism 

I think there are several lessons we ought 
to have learned in the past. One is that 
individualism in the Christian life is inade- 
quate. The theory that, if we make a man a 
good Christian, he will go out and settle labor 
questions and the like righteously has been 
proved false. He does not do that thing. 



38 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

You have got to give him a bigger idea. A 
very prominent man who had sense enough 
to be a judge asked me in Atlanta, "What 
do you mean by civic righteousness? Why 
don't you fellows preach the Gospel?" I tried 
to explain to him the Righteousness of the 
Kingdom as the aim of the Gospel, and he 
said that it was a revelation to him. 

Impossibility of Direct Ecclesiastical Control 

Another lesson we ought to learn is that 
any method of attempted ecclesiastical con- 
trol must not be repeated. That is as dead 
as the Kaiser ought to be. The spirit of Christ 
must be gotten into human relationships; but 
it is one thing to say that and quite another 
to say that the Church must dictate the per- 
sonnel of the Government or to tell the people, 
"You must pass such and such laws on pain 
of being regarded by us as not Christians." 

Division of Labor and Cooperation with the 
State and with Each Other 
Another lesson I think we must learn from 
the past is that there are two principles of 
human progress: One is division of labor; and 
the other is cooperation. We have seen various 
things depart from us. One was the theater, 
and we have kicked it out of doors. Another 
is public schools. Education has been taken 
from the Church very largely and handed 



THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 39 

over to the State. I challenge you to do one 
of two things: either stand with the Roman 
Catholic Church, put yourself against the 
great American institution of public schools, 
and say, "We must have schools controlled 
by our denominations," or else acknowledge 
a division of labor and say that it is your 
task and mine, standing by the public schools 
as great democratic agencies, to get religion 
and the spirit into them by ways that are 
consistent with democratic ideals and with the 
separation of Church and State. 

Another thing we have been taught, and 
which should be well stressed here, is our 
need of unity. I need not dwell on that, but 
I may say this: We cannot force unity, nor 
can we ask anyone to surrender either his 
denominational beliefs or denominational loy- 
alty — not that I do not want him to do it in 
most cases, but that he is not going to do it. 

What We Ought to and Can Agree On 

But I think we can ask every minister to 
do these things: We can ask him, in the first 
place, to abandon his old theology, his indi- 
vidualism, and his selfish scheme of salvation, 
and to say that his object is to get the King- 
dom of God upon earth. I know it sounds 
dogmatic, but if you brethren do not believe 
that, you are wrong and you have got to get 
right! If, for instance, you Baptists believe 



40 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

that by immersion you can get more righteous- 
ness, peace, and joy into the world, stand by 
it, but use it for that purpose. Do you not 
see that if we ask people to give up their 
denominational relationship and denomina- 
tional loyalty, we ask what is at present an 
impossibility? 

As long as every denomination works for 
itself — you Methodists try to make Method- 
ists, you Presbyterians try to make Presby- 
terians, you Episcopalians try to make Epis- 
copalians — what is the result? We move along 
parallel lines, which can never get any closer 
together. But if we all work for the King- 
dom of God upon earth, we all work along 
converging lines toward the one point that 
God's Will be done. That gives every man 
a place to believe what he does believe. He 
will find out that a whole lot of these things 
on which he has been insisting are not so and 
that others are unnecessary. 

Cooperation in Atlanta 

Then we can practice cooperation in evan- 
gelistic work and social service and in applied 
Christianity. Here is how we are trying to do 
that in Atlanta: We have in Atlanta a ministers' 
association, which is limited to evangelicals, 
although I believe that the test of member- 
ship has been changed to the Apostles' Creed 
and twenty -five cents. I was not orthodox 



THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 41 

enough myself to get into it for a long time. I 
could get into the Episcopal Church much 
easier, as far as the theological standard was 
concerned, than I could join this association. 
We have a committee on Church Cooperation, 
composed of clergymen and laymen, and they 
eat a good lunch once a week at one o'clock. 
Then here is their program. We have com- 
mittees on Racial Relationship, Civic Better- 
ment, Education, Law Enforcement, Public 
Presentation — by that we mean bringing people 
down there so they will talk to us — ^Prayer 
Meetings, Evangelism, and Readjustments; and 
about that time the man who got up the 
program asked himself who was going to pay 
for all that, and he put in Finance, and still 
he was not through. Other committees were 
added. 

I want to make two or three remarks, if I 
may, on the spirit and method of this plan. 
We have a committee, for example, on Labor 
and Capital. We have had some experience 
in Atlanta, and I think we have gone through 
the process recommended by Oscar Wilde, 
that the way to get rid of a sin is to commit 
it. We have found that some things are wrong 
by doing them and we are going to do better. 
Here is the principle: That committee on 
Labor and Capital consists of one employer 
of labor, one man who belongs to the Loco- 
motive Engineers, and one preacher. That 



42 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

comes pretty near to being the ideal committee, 
which, I have sometimes thought, should con- 
sist of at least three men: one preacher, one 
lawyer, and one man of common sense. We 
have not got quite that, but we have one 
employer, one employe, and one preacher. 

That committee does not propose to settle 
all these strikes and things and have definite 
programs. It proposes to get in touch with 
the parties and try to get them to come to- 
gether and look each other in the face and 
breathe the right atmosphere. We are going 
to do the best we can. If we have a program 
they will not follow, we are going to put the 
program down until they will follow it. We 
are going to do as the cowboys do out West 
with the steers that go in the wrong direc- 
tion. They do not themselves go in the right 
direction, because they will be "powerful" 
lonesome. They get on the outer edge of 
those steers and gradually bring them around. 
That is the spirit in which we are going to 
try to work. 

Another thing to which I will call especial 
attention is this. I do not know whether it 
has been tried anywhere else or not — in fact, 
we have not tried it ourselves. We want to 
mobilize all the religious, moral, and scientific 
intelligence of the city of Atlanta, whether 
inside the evangelical association or not. How 
are we going to do that? I suggested once 



THE CHURCH OF THE FUTURE 43 

that they let a Unitarian minister belong to 
us and they would not agree. I said, "If we 
can't out-argue him, we can at least out-vote 
him," but they would not let him in. So 
this is the plan: Each one of these committees 
has the power, and is going to exercise it, of 
adding to it suitable ministers or laymen of 
any denomination, or none at all, to serve as 
members of the committee. One of the most 
useful citizens in Atlanta is Rabbi Marx, a 
Jew. As soon as I get back I am going to 
say, "Marx, I want your help on my com- 
mittee." Then I want a Roman Catholic on 
it, and in that way, you see, we shall mo- 
bilize all the good forces of that city on these 
questions, and they do not have to subscribe 
to any creed. I believe it is a very good idea 
to get folks to do Christian things, whether 
they know it or not, with Christian folks. We 
had a dinner at which we put this plan up to 
selected ministers and laymen, and we stressed 
the way in which we were going to work, and 
we are getting back the men we lost, because 
we were a little bit extreme before. The 
budget we have for all this work amounts to 
$35,000. 

That is what I think in a general way about 
the Church of the Future, and that is how 
we are trying to solve some of the problems 
in Atlanta. 



IV 

MOVING TOWARD THE LIGHT 

George W. Coleman 



IV 
MOVING TOWARD THE LIGHT 

I feel very diffident, somewhat embarrassed 
as a modest layman, in appearing before such 
a company of church experts to discuss so 
vital a question as we have before us this 
evening. I have been living for the last ten 
years in a sort of religious Turkish bath, in 
which I have been going from the hot room 
to the cold room and back and forth again 
continually. I find myself very often in the 
midst of strenuous church activities and in 
my place as a deacon in the church on Sunday 
morning, and then on Sunday evening in the 
midst of a great congregation of people who 
are utterly outside of the Church, who have 
little or no sympathy with it, who are very 
critical of it; but who, if I have been able to 
judge their trend for the last ten years, are 
as diligently searching their way to that King- 
dom of God as described by our friend who 
last spoke as anybody that I know. 

It might be helpful to us, in starting out on 
a discussion of the future of the Church, to 
spend just a moment or two in looking at 
the Church through the eyes of these out- 
siders, to see how it looks to them — these 

47 



48 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

people who are in dead earnest, passionate, 
about things which, it seems to me, deeply 
concern the Kingdom of God. These folk are 
all outside of your church, and my church or 
any other church which you can name. Their 
attitude toward the Church is something like 
this: The Church is hopelessly antiquated; it 
lives in another world; it speaks an obsolete 
language; it is helpless in the face of the great 
evils of civilization; it even condones and de- 
fends them; to be a church member is no 
mark of distinction; it conveys no honor nor 
even implies saintliness; the Church conforms 
to all the collective sins of present-day civiliza- 
tion and is concerned largely with the pecca- 
dillos of individuals; it is doomed and already 
passing out. That is the attitude — frank, 
honest, and even passionate — of great com- 
panies of earnest, devoted, and, in many cases, 
spiritually-minded people. 

There is a large measure of truth, I think 
we would all have to grant, in that criticism, 
but there is another side to the truth, it seems 
to me, that these critics do not see at all. 
They are too far away from the Church in 
sympathy and in actual contact to be able 
to apprehend it; and that view I, as an in- 
sider, will express in this way : The Church, in 
its power of continuity, in its widespread per- 
vasiveness, in its priceless heritage, in its 
potential capacity, in its self-support, in its 



MOVING TOWARD THE LIGHT 49 

dynamic Gospel, and in its glorious and Divine 
Leader, is still the greatest institution on earth, 
and no other compares with it. I believe 
these two statements present both sides of 
the truth; that there is altogether too much 
truth in what the critics say, and that what 
I have stated on the other side cannot be 
disregarded. 

Now, these untoward conditions in the 
Church, however we may describe them, are 
undergoing a change, very vital, far-reaching, 
and fundamental, and I think it is a more 
or less rapid change. This process of trans- 
formation is nothing new. The Church has 
been changing from the very beginning of its 
inception. It first took on a Jewish aspect; 
then Greek culture and afterward Roman im- 
perialism gave it other decided transforma- 
tions; Protestantism, in order to save the life 
of the Church, tore it to pieces; commercial- 
ism has put the Church to sleep, for a time, 
at least. And the impending changes in our 
present civilization are calling the Church to 
awake, to arouse itself from its lethargy, and 
to pull itself together, to meet the crucial 
issues of our times. 

Although I am not a student of history 
and cannot speak authoritatively, I think I 
am not far off when I say you will find that 
the Church has always, in a very large de- 
gree, conformed itself to the era and the age 



50 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

of which it has been a part. It has always 
taken on the economic and social and polit- 
ical aspects of the age in which it found itself. 
And the Church of the future will do likewise 
and take on the characteristics of the new 
age which is coming. 

What are some of the characteristics of that 
new 3ige? Well, I believe we can now discern, 
in the broadest outlines, something of the 
nature of the new civilization that is being 
ushered in. It is already on its way. The 
only question is, how far and how fast is it 
going .f^ The first indication of the trend of 
the age, and, consequently, the trend of the 
Church, is a change of emphasis from competi- 
tion to cooperation, not only in business, but 
in all the affairs of life. No sane business man 
today looks upon business life from the same 
point of view that he did ten years ago in the 
matter of the emphasis to be placed on com- 
petition as compared with the emphasis put 
on cooperation. We have been taught in the 
past to carry the emphasis on competition to 
an absurd degree, and the pendulum is swing- 
ing back. Whether it will swing too far and 
we shall get an over-emphasis on cooperation, 
I do not know. The law heretofore has been, 
"Everybody for himself and the devil take 
the hindmost." That is the law today, and 
we have carried it to an utter absurdity, not 
only in economics and business and politics. 



MOVING TOWARD THE LIGHT 51 

but also in the Church and in theology and 
in social matters as well. But at last we are 
finding out it is better for two men or two 
thousand men or two hundred thousand men 
or two million men or two nations or two 
churches or two denominations or two any- 
thing else to work together and share the 
benefits and results that come from working 
together, instead of working with enmity, in 
competition, regardless of each other's welfare. 

That is the first broad line that is marking 
out the new order of civilization. 

The second is a change of emphasis on the 
things that divide men and on the things that 
unite men. Let me say now that, in all these 
changes I shall mention, the change is coming, 
not so much through an utter neglect and 
repudiation of the one principle and an en- 
thusiastic adoption of the other, as in a change 
of emphasis. We are not going to forsake 
all the benefits and advantages of a well- 
ordered competition, not at all; and we are 
not going so far as to subject everything to 
the limitations of cooperation and so carry 
that too far. Likewise, in lessening the em- 
phasis on the things that divide men and in 
enlarging the emphasis on the things that 
unite men, we are not going to forget that 
there are tremendous values in the things 
that divide men. Righteousness and wicked- 
ness divide men, and they will to the end of 



52 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

time, let us hope; but there are many other 
matters on which men disagree which have 
been exaggerated out of all proportion. Some 
things will continue forever to divide men, but 
we are going to put more emphasis hereafter 
on the things that unite men, and less extreme 
emphasis on some things that divide them. 

Take it along another line — property and 
life. Do we realize that in our present-day 
civilization ninety-five per cent of all the laws 
written upon the statute books, national or 
state, have to do with the protection of prop- 
erty, and only five per cent have to do with 
the protection of life.'^ I suppose that is per- 
fectly natural and inevitable, and probably 
quite proper in the evolution of our civilization, 
under a spirit of individualism, when it was 
supposed that an individual was capable of 
taking care of himseK, but when he went away 
from his property he needed the law to come 
in and protect it; but in our complex modern 
society, with our business life, economic life, and 
industrial life as they are today, that condi- 
tion no longer obtains to so great a degree and 
we have to put more emphasis on life and 
need less emphasis on property. When in the 
future it comes to be a question between the 
protection of property and protection of hfe, 
the emphasis is going to be more often in 
favor of men, women, and children, and less 
often in favor of stocks, bonds, and dividends. 



MOVING TOWARD THE LIGHT 53 

These broad outlines suggest three of the 
characteristics of the incoming age. They may, 
perhaps, suggest some of the changes that are 
going to take place in the world of the Church. 
I am speaking of the Church, and not of 
religion; I am speaking of the Church as an 
organization. The Church has already begun to 
be ashamed of sectarianism, which is an indi- 
cation that we are passing from the stage 
where we want to emphasize the things that 
divide men to the stage where we want to 
emphasize the things that unite men. I dis- 
criminate in my own mind between secta- 
rianism and denominationalism. It is quite 
possible to have the fullest cooperation and 
complete coordination, and still maintain a 
thorough distinction between people who have 
different training, but who work together 
toward the same end. I came across an illus- 
tration recently that particularly appealed to 
me as indicating the trend in this direction. 
There were three Jewish soldiers in France in 
a Roman Catholic hospital. A Jewish holy 
day was coming and they needed some un- 
leavened bread with which to observe the day, 
and they did not dare ask for it in a Roman 
Catholic hospital, but they were overheard 
talking about it, and the good nuns in the 
hospital, when the day came, supplied these 
Jewish lads with a sufficient quantity of un- 
leavened bread. The boys were so overwhelmed 



54 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

that they offered to give the nuns all the 
money they had to pay for it, but they would 
not take a cent for doing an act which they 
felt it was their duty to do; so these three 
Jewish boys went out into the town and bought 
the most beautiful roses they could find and 
brought them into the hospital and gave them 
to the nuns, and asked them to put them in 
the chapel at the feet of the statue of Jesus. 
That is an illustration, it seems to me, of the 
Christian sphit which may be found ever^^- 
where. It emphasizes the things that unite 
men instead of emphasizing the things that 
divide men. 

We are learning to do away with sectarian- 
ism and to put denominationalism in its proper 
place. Our missionaries in the foreign field 
were the first to catch this vision, and now 
we are getting it, also, from the battlefields of 
France. 

There is another thing that the Church is 
getting ashamed of. It is not quite so much 
ashamed of it as yet as it is of sectarianism, 
but it is coming rapidly. The Church is 
getting ashamed of collective sin, it is getting 
ashamed of the sins of civilization. Hereto- 
fore it put them off upon God, as something 
entirely beyond the ken of human nature. 
These matters were within the province of 
God, and His inscrutable wisdom, but now we 
are beginning to wake up to the fact that the 



MOVING TOWARD THE LIGHT 55 

Church itself, made up of individual Chris- 
tian men who are followers of Jesus Christ, 
is responsible, in some degree at least, for 
wiping out war, poverty, crime, and disease. 

We get a very good suggestion of what is 
transpiring by way of changes in the Church 
by just noting some of the great prophets of 
the modern Church who within the last dec- 
ade have been standing for the new order, 
emphasizing the things that unite men instead 
of the things that divide men, emphasizing 
cooperation instead of competition, emphasiz- 
ing the sacredness of life rather than the 
sacredness of property. All of these prophets 
point in the same direction, and are utterly 
in harmony with what our last speaker has 
said with reference to the coming of the King- 
dom of Heaven on earth. I refer to Rev. 
Harry F. Ward of the Methodist Church, 
Bishop Charles D. Williams of the Episcopal 
Church, Rev. John Haynes Holmes of the 
Unitarian Church, Rev. Harold Marshall of 
the Universalist Church, Rev. John A. Ryan 
of the Catholic Church, and Rabbi Stephen 
S. Wise of the Jewish Synagogue. These mod- 
ern prophets I have named have done a great 
deal to soften the criticism against the churches 
they represent. 

Another thing, it seems to me, is very perti- 
nent in this connection. Our friends outside 
of the Church, with all their passionate interest 



56 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

and devotion, have this critical view of the 
Church, which I gave in the beginning. It 
makes your blood run cold to hear it, if you 
are not as used to it as I am. TMiere did they 
get this idea.^ They got it from you and me, 
from the Church itself. There is no other 
place where they could get it. Thank Heaven, 
it is beginning to change, they are beginning 
to see the matter in a little different Hght! 

May I illustrate by quoting what came to 
me from one of the friends in Ford Hall.f^ 
The man probably knew nothing about the 
kind of church I belonged to, but happened 
to believe in me and what I stood for, and he 
said, "Well, if Coleman is the kind of man 
that his kind of a church produces, then that 
kind of a church is a good enough church for 
me." But what opportunity have most of us 
had to come into personal contact with these 
people on the outside? And remember, if 
you please, that we of the Church are in the 
minority and they, the outsiders, are in a large 
majority. More than a half, almost two- 
thirds of all our people are outside of every 
kind of rehgious fellowship you know anything 
about. 

One very interesting fact came under my 
observation in connection with my four months' 
trip to France and England during the war 
period. I went over there expecting to find 
a wonderful revival of the verities of religion 



MOVING TOWARD THE LIGHT 57 

in the hearts of the common soldiers, camou- 
flaged perhaps under rough language and a 
rough exterior. I had gathered that impres- 
sion from the books that came out in the first 
year of the War. But I found nothing of the 
sort. And I found nobody else who had found 
anything of the sort. This is not denying that 
there was a work of grace going on in the 
hearts of individual men here and there; there 
were great leaders, like Fred Smith and Harry 
Fosdick, who had great congregations and did 
a mighty work; but there was no general, 
sweeping revival of religion in the hearts of 
the men in the trenches, and I came back 
utterly disappointed from that point of view. 
But I was thoroughly aroused and inspired 
by finding something else I had not dreamed 
of at all when I went away, and that was this: 
That the chaplains and the Young Men's 
Christian Association secretaries and all the 
men of religious faith who were over on the 
other side to help the soldiers had experienced 
a stirring in their own hearts and minds and 
a breaking of their old religious crusts and 
conventions that bodes a great change in their 
church activities when they come home. They 
will be very different men from what they 
were when they went away. 

I remember talking to a rector of an Epis- 
copalian Church from Long Island. As the 
head of a Y M C A center he was cutting a 



58 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

wide swath at one of the base hospitals in 
France, and as I saw him handling all the 
lines of work that pertained to the religious, 
social, and recreational life of 3,000 men in 
that hospital, I turned to him and said, "What 
are you going to do when you go back to your 
little church with the memory of this great 
task you have had in your hands?" He 
shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say, 
"I can't bother about that now; my hands 
are full." 

But, mind you, when those men come back 
— particularly those from England, who have 
seen so much more and suffered so much 
more — but also those from America, when 
they come back, they can no more put their 
new wine into old bottles than they could in 
Christ's day. Let those who are sitting com- 
fortably at home remember that not only are 
these chaplains and ministers mostly young 
men but the men they have served are also 
young. These chaplains have had their con- 
tacts and their reactions with these young men, 
and they measure them just as you measured 
them, Mr. Chairman, in that wonderful article 
you wrote in the American Magazine. Some- 
thing is going to happen in our churches when 
these men return. 

Just one point in concluding. I am going 
to be rash enough to suggest an ideal church, 
not for you or me or anybody who is in the 



MOVING TOWARD THE LIGHT 59 

Church, but for these others who are outside 
of all the churches in larger multitudes than 
those within the churches. They have come 
out of all our churches. I just want to read 
a few paragraphs from a little leaflet of mine 
as an illustration of the kind of a church I 
think Jesus Christ Himself would like to have in 
a community. Did you ever stop to wonder, 
if Jesus Christ came to our Christian civiliza- 
tion today, would He join your church or 
my church or any other church represented 
in this organization .f^ Would He tie Himself 
down exclusively to some denominational 
church and remain apart and separated from 
all the other churches? I think it would be 
rather difficult for us to imagine Him joining 
any of our churches. He would go to all of 
them and He would preach in all of them, but 
I cannot see how He could be a member of 
any of them as they stand today. 

"My ideal church would be so big and 
broad, so true and tolerant, so virile and varied, 
so strong and secure in the hearts of the people, 
that no one would think of having more than 
one such institution to serve any given com- 
munity or neighborhood, even though such 
district might embrace five or ten thousand 
souls. You would find within its fellowship 
Jew and Gentile, Protestant and Catholic, 
Trinitarian and Unitarian, ritualist and evan- 
gelist, native and foreigner, rich and poor. 



60 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

black, white, and yellow, employer and em- 
ploye, radical and conservative, socialist and 
capitalist, and every one else who sincerely de- 
sired to serve and follow Jesus Christ according 
to the light that God had given him. But how 
in the world are we • going to have such a 
diversity in unity as has been suggested, from 
the spiritual point of view? God Himself has 
shown us the possibility of infinite diversity 
in utter unity. All snowflakes are white, 
fluffy, cold, and made of water. Here is 
perfect uniformity. But those who know tell 
us there have never been two snowflakes of 
precisely the same design since the beginning 
of the world, although every last one is built 
on the principle of a hexagon. With the snow- 
flake as a model, our ideal church does not 
seem so entirely impossible. Now, every one 
of these individuals who might be in this 
church is sincerely endeavoring to follow and 
serve Jesus Christ according to the light God 
has given him. But some are old and some 
are young, some are emotional and others 
intellectual, some are esthetic and some are 
prosaic, some are intense and some are phleg- 
matic, some are practical and some are ideal- 
istic. Why should we try to make them all 
alike, or, failing that, tear them apart and 
set additional and artificial barriers between 
them? No, no, no. Let them all be members 
of the Church of the Living God and work 



MOVING TOWARD THE LIGHT 61 

out their own salvation. Let them have 
natural access to one another and win each 
other if they can." 

If the Allies in this war, who formerly 
fought one another, have been able under the 
stress of war to come together, to unite their 
forces to fight the common enemy, cannot 
the Lord Jesus Christ, with the influence of 
the Holy Spirit, gradually, at least, bring all 
who have the Christian spirit together in har- 
monious fellowship, in close cooperation, and 
in a real coordination .f^ It will have to be so 
or else we shall experience what good old 
Benjamin Franklin threatened in the days of 
the signing of the Declaration of Independence. 
The churches will all have to hang together, or 
they will all hang separately. 



DECLARATIONS OF THE ATLANTIC 
CITY CONFERENCE 



DECLARATIONS OF THE ATLANTIC 
CITY CONFERENCE 

Statement on the Gospel Message 

Your Committee on the new or added em- 
phasis of the gospel message for the period 
of reconstruction begs to report: 

We reaffirm our undying confidence in the 
sufficiency of the Gospel of Christ and the 
entire adequacy of the gospel message for 
this age as for all ages. The ages change, 
Jesus Christ remains the full and perfect 
satisfaction for changing ages. No new gospel 
is called for, though new emphasis is needed 
in an age which calls for the eternal Gospel 
given by the Father of all men in the Saviour 
of all men. 

It is our judgment that the Protestant 
churches are imperatively called in these days 
to new strength and vitality in their message, 
their methods, and their spirit. Nothing 
should be permitted to weaken the churches 
in themselves or in the minds of their mem- 
bers or of the world. We call therefore upon 
Protestantism, with its glorious Gospel and its 
abiding spirit, to bear afresh its united testi- 
er 



66 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

mony to the truth and grace of Christ; to the 
utmost cooperation of effort in all those re- 
gions where cooperative effort will best ac- 
complish the purposes of Christ in the world; 
to renew its contact with the source of life 
and power on one side and total human life 
on the other; and to give itself to a new study 
of the Gospel of Christ in itself and its applica- 
tion to present times in all lands. 

We especially urge the deepest emphasis 
upon those eternal and fundamental truths 
which we all hold; the striking of the great 
note of the Gospel for men and society; the 
omission of the petty, divisive, conventional 
notes from the message; the confident preach- 
ing of Christ as the redeemer, the pattern, and 
the power for personal life, and the only true 
center for social, economic, political, and 
world life. 

We urge the fearless, faithful, and Christian 
proclamation of Christ's principles of democracy 
as these principles are to be applied in social, 
economic, and political life between men and 
men, between men and women, between classes 
now divided by possessions or education or 
social condition, between races now in strained 
relations which threaten again the world's wel- 
fare, and between nations not yet interna- 
tionalized. We must organize the Christian 
forces and Christian conscience of this land 
in mercy, in peace, in justice, and make the 



DECLARATIONS OF CONFERENCE 67 

world conscious of God's power and of the 
love of Jesus Christ, Redeemer and Lord of all. 

We believe the Protestant Church should 
emphasize as never before the "making of the 
mind" of men and women everywhere by 
Christianizing all educational forces and activ- 
ities. 

We believe the Protestant Church should 
bear its united testimony in new vitality and 
power to the Gospel as a saving power and 
a law of life for men and society; to the prac- 
tical results of living faith in Christ, and to 
those eternal "truths of divine assistance" 
centering in and finding their expression in 
Christ's power to save men from sin, in His 
desire and ability to help every person in 
trouble or need, in God's eternal, fatherly 
interest in every human life, and in the eter- 
nal comfort of the Spirit in a world broken 
now by overwhelming sorrow. 

We believe the Protestant Church should 
emphasize that a new morning has come with 
new ideals and new standards; that this new 
morning calls for new men and women in Jesus 
Christ and a new relation to all men and 
women in Him; that this new morning calls 
for a squaring of our life with Christ's mes- 
sage, the making the spirit, the teaching, and 
the principles of Jesus Christ to prevail in 
the lives and relations of men and nations. 

We believe we should emphasize the new 



68 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

spirit of Christ that has fallen on the world. 
The spirit of the Cross has been radiantly 
manifested as a living principle on battlefield 
and in lonely home. This must not be lost 
now in a world which has seen it anew. 

We believe that the Protestant Church 
should emphasize anew the objects of the 
Church as a part of its living message to these 
times. 

The fulness and breadth and richness of its 
program are its strength. The joy that was 
set before Him made Jesus to endure the 
cross and despise the shame. The joy of a 
new human life in Christ, a new society, a 
new world in Him should now seem like the 
sound of a trumpet to the Church of Jesus 
Christ. 

Suggested Amendment 

As followers of Christ, the first great Dem- 
ocrat, we aflSrm the complete sympathy of the 
Church for the disadvantaged of earth in their 
right to equality of opportunity — ^politically, 
socially, and economically — and we call upon 
the churches of our land, upon the pulpit and 
the religious press, to give practical expression 
to that sympathy by voicing vigorously and 
unmistakably a demand for the elimination of 
the anti-social and unchristian principles which 
now prevail in large degree in the social and 
industrial worlds, and the substitution of the 



DECLARATIONS OF CONFERENCE 69 

principles of cooperation and service as the 
basis of a new, more Christian social order of 
brotherhood and helpfulness. 

McDowell, Bishop Wm. F., Chairman, 

Bricker, Rev. L. O. 

Bulla, Charles D. 

Eleazer, R. B. 

Gillanders, William, Y. M. C. A. 

Hobbs, Mrs. C. M. 

McDowell, Rev. John. 

Myers, Rev. Johnston. 

Roelofs, Henrietta, Miss. 

Speer, Robert E. 

Statement on Christian Unity 
The vital unity of the Church of the living 
God in the world is the primary and most 
potent fact of human society. That this unity 
has never yet achieved a perfect visible ex- 
pression among men is an incident of the 
imperfection of all human institutions, which 
should not obscure from the Christian mind 
the actuality of the underlying and partially 
invisible fact. And the unfailing aspiration of 
the Christian spirit ought always to be for 
more complete realization and more adequate 
manifestation of this reality. The craving for 
unity among the people of God should there- 
fore be recognized with reverence wherever it 
appears. The obstacles which traditional and 
temperamental separations have raised against 
unison of spirit and unity of action in Christen- 



70 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

dom must be respected for the historical ne- 
cessities out of which they have arisen, but 
should not be reverenced as permanent ele- 
ments of the Christian situation. The progress 
of Christian resolution and Christian effort 
devoted to the exaltation of our common 
Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ, as Master of 
humanity and leader of history, must more 
and more avail, the more earnestly they are 
prosecuted, to abate differences and heal divi- 
sions. The hastening of this progress ought 
to enlist the zealous endeavor of all servants 
of Christ unselfishly devoted to the advance- 
ment of the Kingdom of God upon earth. 

Joined in this mind as they are in respect 
to the needed unity of Christians, the mem- 
bers of this conference none the less recognize 
that the present situation does not permit 
immediate realization of the fulness of this 
conception. It is, however, our conviction that 
the extraordinary circumstances of the time 
constitute a challenge to divided Christendom. 
There is, in the first place, the problem of a 
new world order. There is, in the second place, 
the unity of patriotic purpose which has so 
recently pervaded the citizenship of this coun- 
try and the still more wonderful spirit and 
practice of cooperation among the Allies which 
gained a glorious victory. Moreover, there is 
the inspiring fact that Christian workers with 
the Army in France practically divested them- 



DECLARATIONS OF CONFERENCE 71 

selves of the peculiar and divisive formulas 
which had conditioned their former activities, 
and yet were conscious of neither lack of im- 
pulse nor loss of power while they labored 
strictly and simply as friends of Jesus Christ. 
On the contrary, they attained a higher de- 
gree of effectiveness. Surely the great Head 
of the Church, who is also King of Kings and 
Lord of Lords, is calling to us in vain unless 
we can apply a like spirit of unity and co- 
operation to the solution of the problems of 
peace which, if not more numerous, are cer- 
tainly more complex and more difficult of 
solution than those that arise in time of war. 

This conference, therefore, appeals with 
eagerness and confidence to all Christian fellow- 
ships throughout our nation to adventure 
united Christian enterprises — enterprises that 
loom higher and reach farther than the purely 
denominational outlook would permit. As 
examples of ideas practicable for immediate 
execution which will exercise and develop the 
unity that the times demand, we commend to 
the consideration of church leaders certain 
proposals of common tasks that appear to lie 
immediately ahead along the road toward 
unity, by which we believe all Christian people 
today are ready to advance. 

1. A determined policy for elimination of 
over-churching ought to be heartily and gener- 
ously entered upon by the evangelical bodies. 



72 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

Under no possible conception of denominational 
privilege can there be longer maintained an 
excuse for the planting of churches in any 
community in numbers greater than the needs 
of the community call for. Home mission funds 
should be appropriated in no village or town 
for more than one local church. Additional 
churches should be contemplated only when 
the community grows to a population sufficient 
to require the creation of an extra parish, 
which should then be set up by the aid of 
the mother parish in the place. Religious 
convictions are entitled to respect, but it must 
be confessed that mere denominational pride 
often masquerades as love of truth; and we 
must all be prepared to ask ourselves whether 
distinctive denominational differences are of 
sufficient importance to justify dividing a 
community against itself. 

2. In larger places, where obviously more 
than one evangelical church is needed to 
meet the requirements of an increasing popula- 
tion, the common endeavor of Christians 
should look to the distribution of houses of 
worship through the municipality in such a 
fashion as to afford to each, as far as possible, 
a distinct parish or community field. A com- 
mon understanding among the churches of 
growing cities should insure that, as new 
suburbs are opened, each shall be occupied by 
some one denomination engaged to conduct the 



DECLARATIONS OF CONFERENCE 73 

community church on a basis that will adapt 
it to the common appreciation of all Christian 
worshipers. 

3. The unification of educational institutions. 
It were greatly to be desired that there could 
be brought about a consolidation of our de- 
nominational institutions of learning, espe- 
cially in our less populated states where such 
colleges are not fully endowed or equipped. 
If this is not practicable, the call of the hour 
would seem to be that, in larger and more 
populous states where colleges are already well 
established, policies ought to be steadily di- 
rected towards creating a sense of common 
service, and, reciprocal to this, a feeling of 
responsibility on the part of all Christian 
citizens for all schools and colleges which are 
conducted in behalf of true evangelical char- 
acter building. Similar principles applied to 
theological education would bring about nu- 
merous consolidations of seminaries for the 
training of the ministry. 

4. The conference is convinced that imme- 
diate and perhaps rapid movement is demanded 
for the consolidation of missionary boards and 
societies working in the various Protestant 
denominations. The combination of these 
agencies need not wait on the union of the 
churches supporting them. Already the foreign 
mission enterprise is recognized as being an 
enterprise for the support of generic Chris- 



74 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

tianity and not for the reproduction of diverse 
peculiarities of Christianity. The home enter- 
prise ought speedily to come out to the height 
and breadth of a similar principle. And the 
practical business-like result of appreciation 
thus created for this common missionary task 
of all the churches will naturally be a unifica- 
tion of the agencies through which the task is 
to be accomplished, both at the administrative 
centers and in the various centers of field 
work. We desire to express our appreciation 
of the expressed intention of various church 
boards engaged in raising reconstructive and 
other so-called "forward movement" funds, to 
avoid the expenditure of such funds in com- 
petitive enterprises. We express the hope that 
there will be such consultation and advice 
between the various church boards expending 
such funds as will make the intention of the 
separate boards effective. 

5. One of the most significant features of 
Christian life in the last two years has been 
the unified ministration of all types of churches 
to the soldiers of the country through the 
Young Men's and Young Women's Christian 
Associations. These same organizations ought 
now to focus in equal unity the continued 
effort of Christians as the return to normal 
civic life revives the value of their customary 
city, village, county, and industrial work. The 
past tendency of these twin Associations has 



DECLARATIONS OF CONFERENCE 75 

been no doubt toward a certain independence 
from the Church. But recent experience makes 
it more evident than ever that the Church 
should not alone dominate these agencies by- 
its constructive influence, but through them 
must perform a great function of community 
service which cannot be well directed from 
parish centers. In particular neighborhoods 
and isolated communities where the Young 
Men's or the Young Women's Christian Asso- 
ciation cannot readily function, congregations 
conveniently located should unite in providing, 
under other forms, community service that 
shall be stamped with the democratic spirit 
and administered in honest desire to give life 
a deeper meaning for all sorts and conditions 
of men. In congested city communities open 
forums and settlement houses ought to invite 
more and more the earnest cooperation of 
Christian men on a platform transcending sec- 
tarian distinctions. Where the spirit of unity 
in Christ prevails, multiplied opportunities for 
such unified community service are certain to 
become visible to the enlightened eyes of 
spiritually-minded men, and the practice of 
joint service must continually intensify desire 
and will for more and more of Christian fel- 
lowship in deeds of mercy. 

6. Finally, in aiming at a greater unity of 
Christian forces, we must not forget the end 
for which we must cooperate, the purpose for 



76 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

which the Church exists on earth: the realiza- 
tion of God's kingdom in the world, the reign 
of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Spirit, 
in all human relationships. 

So long as each denomination aims at its own 
propagation, we move at best upon parallel 
lines which can never meet; while if each 
denomination aims at God's rule upon earth, 
we move upon converging lines which bring 
us constantly closer together. We, therefore, 
recommend that the churches in every locality 
form some sort of organization for cooperative 
work and agree upon a program adapted to 
community needs. As a guide to this, we 
suggest that the religious leaders in every 
place provide themselves with copies of the 
Manual of Inter-Church Work and also ac- 
quaint themselves with what is being done 
and attempted in various towns and cities. 

Among the problems which church coopera- 
tion should aim to solve, we would mention 
especially those arising from the returned sol- 
dier, racial relationships, and labor and capital. 
And in order that the Church should be able 
to mobilize for the public good the truly 
religious and humanity -loving forces to be 
found in every community outside the so- 
called evangelical churches, and even outside 
any church at all, we suggest the plan of 
having the various committees to which special 
tasks are assigned call to their aid such persons 



DECLARATIONS OF CONFERENCE 77 

as are in sympathy with our general aims and 
whose constructive abihties will prove helpful, 
regardless of their religious creeds or church 
affiliations. 

Wilmer, Rev. C. B., Chairman, 

Athearn, Walter S. 

Best, Nolan R. 

Coleman, George W. 

Harmon, H. H. 

Marquis, John A. 

Nesler, J. L. 

A Review of the Strength and Weakness 
OF THE Inter-Church Federation or Com- 
mittee Idea, as Applied to State and 
Local Federations 

To attempt an estimate of the momentum 
gained by the movement thus designated is 
an effort to calculate the steady pressure of 
events toward a satisfying realization of that 
spirit of unity which all Christians recognize 
in the life of the Church today, and yet the 
extent of which it is impossible to determine. 
It includes sentiments and activities of the 
most varied character, all the way from hes- 
itant and tentative efforts toward cooperation 
to the most formal proposals of organic union. 
Yet both of these forms would be at once 
acknowledged as extreme, for church federa- 
tion, under whatever form of organization, is 
a simple and sincere effort to accomplish the 
common tasks of the churches of God within 



78 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT ? 

a given area in the manner most in harmony 
with the principle of cooperation, and with 
the least exhibition of friction. 

The strength of the movement inheres in 
several elements expressed in it: 

1. The increasing desire for union among 
the free, evangelical, Protestant churches, be- 
ginning almost immediately after the Reforma- 
tion and voiced with growing urgency during 
recent generations. 

2. The consciousness that Protestantism, in 
the effort to make clear and emphatic its testi- 
mony to the modern world, suffers a serious 
inhibition by reason of its divided estate, 
particularly as contrasted with such appar- 
ently unified organizations as the Greek and 
the Roman churches. 

3. The recognition of the economic value of 
cooperation in religious activities as contrasted 
with the wastefulness of disunion exhibited in 
numberless communities, to the regret of the 
intelligent and the scandal of the Church. 

The elements of weakness in the idea of 
federation seem due largely either to a mis- 
interpretation of the term or of the method, 
or to erroneous efforts to realize its principles. 
Among these may be named the following: 

1. Objection is at times made to the word 
"federation," either because of prejudice 
against the term, or because of a failure to 
comprehend the free and untrammeled mean- 



DECLARATIONS OF CONFERENCE 79 

ing which inheres in it in the vocabulary of 
Christian cooperation, or because of some un- 
fortunate history through which the idea may 
have passed in a given locahty. 

In such cases nothing is gained by insisting 
upon the term. Any other form of designa- 
tion is as effective. "Council of Churches," 
"Committee of Church Cooperation," and 
others, are titles of equal validity. 

2. The fact that certain churches within the 
boundaries of the evangelical faith refuse affil- 
iation with such a cooperating body on doc- 
trinal grounds, such as particular interpreta- 
tions of the atonement, or of the second ad- 
vent, while doubtless a disadvantage, need not 
be regarded as a serious obstacle. It is rarely 
the case that all the churches of a given area 
can be counted on at once in such a fellowship. 
Those who are able to form the cooperating 
group need not hesitate on the ground of only 
partial inclusion. 

3. More frequently opposition is likely to be 
encountered on the ground that the federation 
in a given locality has committed itself too 
exclusively to some form of activity, such as 
the suppression of vice or slum redemption, 
which may not appeal with like urgency to all 
members of the community. The remedy is, of 
course, a broadening of the scope and program 
of the organization, in adjustment to a more 
ample conception of united responsibility. 



80 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

4. On the other hand, church federation has 
encountered the proper criticism that it lost 
itself in a multitude of trivial details of agita- 
tion and futile effort, without attaining any- 
significant objective. A mere hint of such a 
criticism affords the suggestion for its abate- 
ment by resort to a program of adequate and 
worthful service. 

5. A much more serious difficulty is encoun- 
tered in those localities in which there are 
already well-established and successful organ- 
izations performing some one of the functions 
which it is the purpose of church federation 
to discharge. Among those agencies may be 
named those of the teacher-training ministries, 
cooperative councils of city missions, mission- 
ary campaign committees, evangelistic com- 
missions, and several agencies to which the 
War has given being. In these cases great 
tact and good will are essential. There should 
be no competition. If the particular agency 
is functioning adequately, some form of affilia- 
tion can usually be secured. Otherwise, the 
larger body of activities and sentiment is 
likely at last to have the right of way. The 
problem is one of discretion and patience, 
rather than real difficulty. 

6. One of the outstanding difficulties likely 
to be met is the lack of interest on the part 
of ministers, both individually and in denomina- 
tional groups, in a form of activity which seems 



DECLARATIONS OF CONFERENCE 81 

at first remote from the interests habitually 
associated with their particular churches. For 
many preachers it requires a considerable expe- 
rience of the tragedies of sectism to convince 
them that there are relationships beyond their 
congregations and denominational lines that 
would prove of the largest value even to their 
own work. They have not discovered that 
the Christian order of the world, which Jesus 
called the Kingdom of God, is of greater mo- 
ment than the success of their denominational 
program. 

The remedy for this provincialism is the 
direction of their attention to the fact that, 
through the cooperation made possible by fed- 
eration, a given denomination may find a 
richer opportunity to render service to the 
community than it ever conceived on the 
individualistic basis. Suppose the neglected 
areas of a city were divided among the denom- 
inations, under the auspices of the church 
federation, or some particular social problem — 
like the social evil, the saloon, the housing 
situation, or the Negro population — were as- 
signed to each such group for study and atten- 
tion. Would not the difficulty disappear.f^ 

7. One of the problems which gives pause 
to the organization of federation work in some 
localities is that of an adequate financing of 
the enterprise. Unless it is possible from the 
first to secure the participation of the denom- 



82 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

inations as such, or in smaller places, the 
individual churches, it is evident that at the 
inception of the work gifts must be sought 
from interested individuals until the move- 
ment can take form sufficiently to make its 
appeal to the Christian community as a whole. 
But this should not be permitted to continue 
longer than necessary. It is possible for a few 
individuals to obtain an undue and regrettable 
control of federation affairs through their 
financial relations to them. Moreover, the 
cause needs to be rooted in the solicitude of 
the various participating denominations, and, 
in the final issue, in the individual congrega- 
tions themselves. It is from these two sources 
that the funds should be sought. And if the 
needs of the organized work of federation do 
not make an adequate appeal, an enlargement 
of the service, to include all the cooperative 
causes like local missions and charities that 
now tend to seek direct contact with these 
sources, will provide both worthful activity 
for federation agencies, and an education in 
the wider possibilities of united effort. 

Furthermore we put ourselves on record as 
hopeful that the great denominational cam- 
paigns for funds now in initiation may be 
conducted with the explicit understanding that 
the expenditure of these funds shall be ad- 
ministered on a non-competitive basis. It is 
too late in the history of Christendom for a 



DECLARATIONS OF CONFERENCE 83 

fresh reaction to the struggle for mere denom- 
inational prestige in this dangerous field of 
financial rivalry. 

8. In the case of rural churches it has been 
found of great value, particularly in sparsely 
settled districts, to assign to various denom- 
inations regional sections in which adequate 
responsibility may be accepted. 

9. Another interesting development of co- 
operative effort is observed in the rapid 
emergence of community churches. These are 
the inevitable response of the spirit of economy 
and good feeling to the challenge presented by 
the surprising growth of urban districts. The 
community church is usually composed of 
members of the various communions either by 
association or federation, and in its expression 
of sentiment is likely to be largely indifferent 
to denominational interests. It may in fact 
remain entirely unrelated to any outside organ- 
ization. This, however, does not commend 
itself to us as the ideal condition. Some type 
of relationship with the larger Christian world, 
through some one or more denominations, or 
through some selected missionary organization, 
would seem preferable. In this manner the 
various interests of world-wide missionary and 
philanthropic character find competent inter- 
pretation and response. The inevitable result 
of community churches remaining in isolation 
from the usual means of association is such a 



84 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

drawing together, in their very capacity as a 
new and interesting manifestation of the re- 
ligious spirit, as shall eventuate unfortunately 
in the formation of another denomination. 
We note with deepest interest the growth of 
community churches when connected with 
national religious organizations which tend to 
give strength, stability, and a world outlook. 

The experiences of several years of federation 
work and the results which are already apparent 
warrant the conclusion that the method is 
highly practicable, and certain to be applied 
in a multitude of places not now included in 
its operation, both in this land and in the 
mission fields. We therefore urge the officers 
of the Federal Council of the Churches of Christ 
in America to enlarge the resources of the 
Commission on Federations, so that this min- 
istry of cooperation may be extended as rapidly 
as possible to areas not yet able to avail them- 
selves of its values. 

These are but suggestions, intimating the 
growing strength and the increasing problems 
of federation in its manifold expressions. The 
problems themselves only serve to indicate the 
rich and varied nature of that cooperation 
which under many names is appearing in the 
Church of Christ. It is not the name of fed- 
eration which is significant, or to be made 
the subject of contention. It is rather the 
purpose of all who see the possibilities of such 



DECLARATIONS OF CONFERENCE 85 

cooperative effort to capitalize as far as may 
be the sentiment in favor of unity, and thus to 
bring the work of the Church to a new level of 
efficiency and power. 

Willett, Prof. Herbert L., Chairman, 

Chamberlin, Rev. Roy B. 

Conover, E. M. 

Denny, C. S. 

Flynn, Rev. R. O. 

Johnson, C. K. 

McAfee, J. E. 

McConnell, Bishop Francis J. 

StoU, C. C. 

Vance, Rev. James I. 

America's Unharnessed Spiritual Power 

A Minute prepared by Mr. J. E. McAfee 
and adopted by the Conference. 

The Soldier 
In welcoming the valiant young life return- 
ing from military camps and battlefields, our 
churches must be conscious that they receive 
those who in army and navy have looked 
to religious organizations for a ministry almost 
as varied as human need, for the interpreta- 
tion of the eternal realities, for unfailing fellow- 
ship in the deadly routine of military discipline 
and in the direct event of war's tragedy, for 
recreation in wholesome entertainment and 
clean sport, for education in foreign languages, 
in general culture, and even in the technique 



86 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

of their stern science, and all with an instant 
adaptation of methods to emergent needs in 
utter disregard where necessary of traditions 
and time-honored usages. Moreover, these 
returning hosts have been in the service of a 
government which has thrown about its troops 
moral safeguards never in all the history of 
military operations thought possible, even 
when they were considered desirable, and 
which have made the American Expeditionary 
Force the marvel of old-world society for its 
probity and moral cleanliness. Terrible though 
the mission was upon which our soldiers have 
been bent, the lofty idealism in which the 
national undertaking has been interpreted 
by the President and the unselfish aspirations 
with which the whole nation has supported 
its fighting forces have lifted them to heights 
of heroic self-sacrifice never before attained by 
great bodies of men in human history. 

From all this these youth return to find in 
countless numbers of our communities a dull 
and prosaic religious formalism, petty con- 
siderations perpetuating factional cleavages, 
many of life's most vital interests quite un- 
touched by religion's purifying verities, recrea- 
tion cheaply commercialized and often debased, 
the whole social and economic order grossened 
by self-seeking, while too many of our churches 
are content to interpret religion in the terms 
of a narrow margin of life's realities. 



DECLARATIONS OF CONFERENCE 87 

The Student 
Nor is this experience unique. Students have 
poured out of our institutions of higher train- 
ing, fired by an unselfish ideahsm which has 
suppKed the guarantee of those promising so- 
cial reforms which not even war has wholly 
checked. For years it was a shame to count 
the apathy and indifference which this hal- 
lowed youthful social passion has often en- 
countered in our churches and which has re- 
pelled and stunned large numbers of those who 
should have been promptly enlisted in the 
crusade for corporate righteousness and for 
that Christly social order which it is the per- 
ennial mission of the Church to inspire. 

The Workingman 
Facing the spectacle of centuries-old civil- 
izations fallen into chaos through economic 
revolution, our churches must view with re- 
newed anxiety the alienation of great masses 
of American labor. The impotence of old- 
world religious orders before this tragic social 
disintegration must shock such complacency as 
remains among us into a realization of the 
significance to our civilization of an American 
church and American working-people estranged 
from one another and even crossed in purposes. 
Newer and more advanced democracies than 
our own are facing the dread consequences 
of a similar schism, between those who mediate 



88 CHURCH— AFTER WAR— WHAT? 

the verities of religion and those who sweat 
in the daily toil of society's sustenance. These 
are stern lessons. They are the tragedies of 
a world in which we also live. Institutions 
bearing the name and assuming to mediate the 
spirit of the Champion of the toiling and 
heavily laden carry a unique responsibility for 
economic justice, industrial security, and so- 
cial righteousness. The holy and unselfish 
passion for a better world and a truer pros- 
perity flaming in the hearts of multitudes of 
these workers should generate a sympathy in 
the Christian Church which shall loyally help 
to redirect mistaken programs of industrial 
betterment and guide into the realization of 
the fundamentally common purposes of all who 
labor to serve and who follow the Christ. 

Church Leadership 
No such spiritual energy was ever before 
concentrated in any land or at any time as 
the churches now find available in American 
young life and in masses quickened to larger 
and juster economic aspirations. Under God 
nothing is impossible for it. It only awaits 
mobilization to effect achievements whose only 
reality heretofore has been the visions of 
prophets. Greater tragedy can scarcely be 
conceived if our churches shall stand indifferent 
or impotent before this challenge to their 
capacity for leadership. It cannot suflice that 



DECLARATIONS OF CONFERENCE 89 

this puissant youth and seasoned vigor shall 
be offered a secure haven of refuge, a salva- 
tion to placid and untroubled bliss. They ask 
for no baubles of reward. They must sadly 
or resentfully spurn such a proffer. They seek 
tasks, an emprise worthy of their prowess. 
They claim no safety short of following a 
Saviour into a sacrificial saviourhood. 

We call passionately upon all our churches 
to rise to this incomparable challenge. Com- 
pounded benisons of that human well-being 
which our heroic sons have bled to insure to 
others we may claim in a reconstructed social 
order modeled upon the hopes and purposes 
of Jesus Christ. This awaits only the marshal- 
ing of these splendid forces. That church will 
be no church of Christ which shall miss through 
lethargy or blind indifference or blundering 
apprehension of the genius of its Gospel this 
sublime opportunity to advance the common- 
wealth of men, the democracy of God on 
earth. 



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